Monday, 2 March 2009

One can't help but wonder how Cai Mingchao, the bogus bidder who won the Chinese bronzes as an act of protest, would feel if Pierre Berge did in fact return the bronzes in question to China. If I were Monsieur Berge that is exactly what I would do. But first, as an act of protest at the sheer high-handedness of it all, I would have them melted down. Into a nice neat cube.

10 comments:

i beg your pardon but i must say that is a shame (besides the robbery of cultural heritage)that one collection although very estimeed or important were sold by the price we all know. It is pornographic! And we all know that those rubish bargains don´t worth that price...

I have no idea if they asked for the bronzes through other channels or means... but I want the Greeks to have the Elgin marbles back and Yale to give the poor Indians their beloved chief's skull back ... owning something does mean one has a moral right to it.. what about the dealers from the Southern U.S. who robbed graveyards for statues and urns and sold them?

i'm with you on this one, though i'd hate to see anything so beautiful melted down. instead, i think pierre should take them home and lock them in a cabinet, and make sure they are willed to a private individual who will do the same...

these were taken out of china, what, 150 years ago? when does the statute of limitations run out for something like that? it's not like pierre and yves smuggled them out under a model's ball gown during the "opium" days. they were purchased from a dealer, and pierre and yves were the legal owners, plain and simple.

You know what - this is probably one act of robbing cultural heritage that we should all be thankful for. If they'd remained in China they would have been destroyed, along with everything else of beauty, during that idiot Mao's revolution. People that stupid don't deserve them.

Looting and plundering have been going on for ages and ages. I'm sure I own something that wasn't attained thru proper channels over time. Suzy has a valid point. Think back on all of the art that has been destroyed over the years. The Taliban blowing up the giant ancient buddhas was heartbreaking.